Atlantic City sex worker slayings get the spotlight on new A&E series

Nearly ten years later and no one has been charged with the deaths of four women whose bodies were found in a ditch behind the Golden Key motel in the West Atlantic City section of Egg Harbor Township.

LukaTDB, ThinkStock

The gruesome case will be featured as part of a new A&E series, "The Killing Season," debuting in November. Documentarians will examine the possibility that the same serial killer was responsible for this incident and the deaths of several sex workers on Long Island years ago — another case that has gone cold.

On Nov. 20, 2006, the South Jersey bodies were discovered by a passerby behind the Golden Key on the Black Horse Pike. Each woman — all known prostitutes in the area — were found barefoot with their heads facing east. A cause of death could not be determined for two bodies as a result of decomposition, but it was determined the other two were strangled.

Egg Harbor Township Mayor James "Sonny" McCullough, who held the seat in 2006, said the incident is obviously something the township is not proud of, but if publicity of the case on television leads to an arrest, "that would be great."

"Atlantic City is a transient area, so once it hit the news that four bodies were found, I’m not sure that the individual who perpetrated these horrible murders didn’t take off for other places, so that’s what made it more difficult," McCullough told New Jersey 101.5. "The individual could be incarcerated some place else in the United States for all we know, maybe on some other crime."

When contacted for an update on the investigation, Acting Atlantic County Prosecutor Diane M. Ruberton said the investigation is considered "continuously active," and the work will continue until the person responsible is charged and convicted.

Along with a handful of other motels in the area, the Golden Key was demolished in 2015.